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Harley MS 2769
- Record Id:
- 040-002048600
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048600
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000027
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2769
- Title:
-
Ovid, Metamorphoses
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
f. 1r-2v: A former pastedown and flyleaf, with an added 15th-century table of contents and prologue.
ff. 3r-196v: Ovid, Metamorphoses, with commentary.
f. 197r-v was originally blank leaf with added 15th-century text.
Added annotations throughout.
Decoration:
Large initial in colours and gold with acanthus leaves and naturalistic flowers (f. 3r). Large initial in blue with reserved lines and red pen-flourishing at the beginning of each subsequent book (ff. 15v, 29v, 41v, 54v, 65v, 77r, 91r, 105v, 118v, 130r, 143r, 153r, 168v, 182r). Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or in red with purple flourishings.
The decorated initials are executed in a Florentine style, and the manuscript was made c. 1400 according to unpublished notes of A. C. de la Mare at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048600", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2769: Ovid, Metamorphoses" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048600 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2769 : Ovid, Metamorphoses - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2770]/040-002048600
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1375
- End Date:
- 1424
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 14th century-1st quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 285 x 200 (160 x 85) mm.
Foliation: ff. 197 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Script: Semi-humanistic.
Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather; marbled endpapers.
Catchwords written horizontally.
Collation: Mainly in quires of 8.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Italy, probably Florence.
Provenance:
Johannes, 15th century: inscribed with his name (f. 1r).Inscribed, 15th century 'Iste liber est conventus Sancte Marie de .. (erased)' (f. 197v).Added table of contents, prologue, annotations throughout and added text at the end, 15th century (ff. 1v-2v, 197v), and throughout in the same hand.John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold on 23 April 1720 to the Harleys (Wright and Wright, Diary (1966)).The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘23 die Aprilis, 1720’ (f. 1r). Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage: Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2769.
Franco Munari, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Supplement 4 (London: University of London Institute of Classical Studies; Warburg Institute, 1957), no. 170.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: ~1715-1723~, pp. 35 n. 6, 196 n. 7.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 162.
F. T. Coulson, 'Hitherto Unedited Medieval and Renaissance Lives of Ovid', Medieval Studies, 49 (1987), 152-207 (p. 165).
The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English literature~, ed. by Rita Copeland. 5 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012- ), I, 800-1558 (2016), p. 161, n. 9.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)